


'Cause Everyone's to Blame but Me

by Drag0nst0rm



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Family Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 20:30:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20180290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: At the end of the day, there's plenty of blame to go around.





	'Cause Everyone's to Blame but Me

**Author's Note:**

> This was for evilbrat2013, who wanted angst, Finwe and sons, and "I blame you."
> 
> I still don't own the Silmarillion.

Feanaro blamed Indis. The whole family knew that. The whole of the city knew that, and probably most of the rest of Aman too, at this point. No matter what Finwe tried to do to smooth things down between them, Feanaro made it very clear that he wasn’t placated with cutting remarks and icy silences alike.

After a particularly disastrous family dinner, Indis followed Feanaro out after giving him a few minutes to cool down. He’d taken refuge in the forge where he was starting to learn his craft, but he hadn’t had time to start much of anything yet.

Indis hovered in the doorway so that she wouldn’t have to get too close to the fire’s suffocating heat. Sweat was already staining Feanaro’s face.

She was the adult in this situation. It was her job to be the one to reach out. She just wasn’t sure how when every look Feanor gave her was more scorching than the fire. “Your father is looking for you.”

Feanaro flinched but didn’t look up. “Is he.” His voice was flat.

“Yes. And your brother was wor- “

“I don’t have a brother,” Feanaro said, banging whatever tool he’d been examining down with a clatter. “And thanks to you, I never will.”

It was a new variation on an old accusation, and it took all Indis had not to snap. “You know, it was a mutual decision,” she said, her voice still a touch sharper than she’d intended. “I didn’t force your father to marry me.”

“No,” Feanaro agreed. “You just took advantage of his grief and loneliness.”

Fury, long built by years of small slights and the endless whispers, turned her cheeks bright red. “He courted me,” she said. “He took the first step, always. Your own mother allowed him to move on - “

Feanaro whirled around, and Indis took a step back.

It hadn’t been sweat on Feanaro’s cheeks after all.

Shame flooded her now instead of fury. Feanaro was wrong, and too old for these outbursts, but still, still, she ought to be above lashing back.

“My father didn’t - he wouldn’t have - “ For once, even Feanaro was lost for words, and his voice shook with the emotion that even after all this was still not spent.

“Alright,” she said quietly, tightly restrained, and turned to go.

Feanaro stormed and raged, but he never cried. Not around her.

Not until now.

If he insisted on blaming someone, maybe it was best it was kept to her after all.

Nolofinwe blamed Feanaro. Not at first, not when he was a child; he could still remember looking up wide eyed at Feanaro then, of listening to the pride in their father’s voice when he talked of his oldest son and deciding that he wanted to be just like him.

But that was a long time ago now, back when Feanaro’s distaste had only been for what he stood for and could be overcome, if grudgingly, by Nolofinwe tugging on his robe and begging to be picked up. It had been forgotten over the course of long afternoons when Feanaro had been the only one who never tired of answering Nolofinwe’s endless questions, who had seemed to delight in being the one to know and share.

Now every conversation with him was a battle, and it only got worse when their father was there. Every victory, no matter how small, mattered more; every loss came with a greater cost.

But tonight their father was elsewhere; dancing with Mother, perhaps, or talking to one of the artists they’d invited to the dance about their latest work. 

It was only the two of them on the balcony, and Nolofinwe was grateful for the cool breeze, because it was the only thing providing the slightest comfort to his growing headache.

They’d managed to be - almost polite, for once, but then Feanaro’d had to ruin by making a remark about Nolofinwe’s mother that was so matter of fact it might have been reflex, and Nolofinwe had to grit his teeth against the first three things that came to mind.

Feanaro blinked, and if Nolofinwe didn’t know better, he would have said his half-brother looked sorry, but he did know better, so what came out instead was, “Once, just once, have you considered just _letting something go?”_

Without a word, Feanaro held his goblet out over the edge of the balcony and let it slip through his fingers to the garden pathway below.

The ringing clatter was louder than Nolofinwe expected.

He was abruptly reminded of the lesson Feanaro had once taught him on gravity, but he pushed the memory aside.

That was a long time ago now.

“That really wasn’t what I meant,” he said into the silence.

Feanaro ignored the comment. “I’ll let anything go,” he said, “anything that doesn’t matter. Anything that does, you’ll have to pry out of the hands of my corpse.” 

He turned and stalked away, and it was pointless and dramatic, and Feanaro all over.

Nolofinwe looked down at the gold goblet below. 

He wondered, just briefly, whether Feanaro had let him go when they’d stopped being able to have a civil conversation, or whether the fact that they still talked at all meant that Feanaro was still grimly holding on.

If he was, he wasn’t doing it very well.

He sighed as he looked again at the goblet.

He supposed he had better go and pick it up.

Arafinwe blamed the crown, not that he ever told anyone that.

His brothers were different enough and talented enough that had their father been anyone else, they could have pursued separate interests and each have been the best in their fields; each standing at equal heights on different mountains.

But Finwe was king, and even in peaceful Aman accidents happened, which meant sooner or later, he was going to have to officially declare a successor and elevate one above the other. Only one could win that competition. He knew that all too well.

Judging by the weariness in his father’s eyes, he knew it too.

But he didn’t speak of that. He never did.

“Do you have to leave so soon?” he asked, trying to smile. “It’s been so long since you came to visit.”

“I like it by the sea,” Arafinwe said.

It was peaceful there, without the tension that covered Tirion like a blanket of ash. The Teleri cared less about such things.

And by the sea, safely out of the way and out of the competition, he was no threat.

There was a reason he had managed to maintain a friendly correspondence with both of his brothers.

The only way to really win, it seemed, was to declare himself out of the game.

Finwe blamed himself. 

It was not a new thought by far, but it was one that the cool Halls of Mandos honed to a razor edge as he watched the world unfold through endless threads.

He would not wish any of his children unmade, but if only he could have held them together here, or explained things better there, or -

When his children fell, he did not go to them.

He could not bear to see his own guilt turned to fury in their eyes.


End file.
